The title of this blog is Life Is A Possibility! I gave it that title because I believe that life is a possibility, and I believe in possibilities.

Some people think I’m a Pollyanna. Some think I’m like an ostrich…my head is stuck in the sand because I won’t entertain what they call reality. The reason I don’t is simply this: I believe in a greater Reality. I believe that what most people think is reality is their imagination and my imagination doesn’t go where their imagination goes.

I’m not alone. The book stores have shelves of books that teach this. Ancient mystics have taught it. Life as we “know” it is a life that we’ve made up, minute by minute, with our minds….our thoughts, our feelings and our beliefs.

Neuroscientists claim that our brains are plastic and capable of being molded the way we want, if we’ll take the time and make the effort. In fact, the neuroscientists say, if we continue on the path we’re on, our brains may take us places we really don’t want to go.

I learned about negative and positive reinforcement when I studied psychology. Neuroscience teaches something similar…if we entertain negative thoughts consistently, we are training our brains to be negative and the more negative our brains are, the more negativity we will experience.

Think about that for a moment. Have you ever experienced a day when nothing went right, you had one bad thing after another happen? The reason for that is…your negative brain. Your brain’s neuropathways are more negative than positive and negativity attracts negativity. Like a magnet, your brain is trained to attract more negativity. It’s a habit. Scientists tell us that habits actually form ruts in our brain; the more ingrained the habit, the deeper the rut. Years ago, I turned onto a dirt road in my car, only it wasn’t just dirt. It had rained the night before, so the road was muddy. My car was soon stuck. The more I tried to get out, the deeper the rut the car was in became. Usually, when a car is stuck, the driver tries to get out by turning the tires, in the hope of getting out of the rut. Sometimes it works.

That’s what happens with your brain. Every emotion, negative or positive, begins a rut in your brain, that’s the neuropathways. The more you experience the emotion, the deeper and wider the rut grows.

If you’re experiencing more negativity than positivity in your life, realize that you’ve grown some deep negative neuropathways. Two branches of science have grown up around this concept: positive psychology and neuroscience. The good news is: you can change your brain! When you make the attempt to change, your brain begins to grow new neuropathways, positive neuropathways.

Why bother? First, your brain, therefore, you, will be heather! Research shows that positive people are healthier and live longer. That alone is reason enough to be a Pollyanna.

Second, your brain likes to be positive; it works better when you’re positive.

Third, to experience all the magnificent possibilities of life! You’ll never have the life of your dreams if you’re negative more than you’re positive.

Convinced? Ready to learn how to be positive, how to train your neuropathways to be positive? OK! But, you say, how do I train my brain?

I’m so glad you asked! Here’s how: in an earlier post, I talked about mental gymnasiums and emotional gyms. A mental gymnasium is simply repeating certain words over and over, like a mantra, until you begin to feel the emotion that the word depicts. For example, by repeating the word, peace, over and over, even if you feel stupid, even if your brain tells you that it doesn’t work, that the way to peace is something else, if you continue repeating the word peace, soon you will feel peaceful. Your body will relax, your mind will relax. You are training your brain to be peaceful. The emotional gym is the same. You focus on the word peace, or hope, love, joy, gratitude. Each word evokes a feeling state, which, in turn, trains your brain to grow in the direction of the feeling.

Sound too simple? It isn’t. Your brain will rebel; your ego will tell you this is silly and doesn’t work. But do it anyway. A young woman I know used the emotional gym and in less than a year, her life had changed, for the better, completely.

Try it. Train your brain to be more positive. Every day, use the mental gymnasium and watch what happens in your life. I guarantee you’ll have a better life!

To change one’s life, begin immediately. Be flamboyant. No exceptions! William James, early 20th century psychologist.

I’ve always admired flamboyance. Being a wimpy, mousey, quiet person, people who lived large, flamboyant lives fascinate me. When I read the quote above, it intrigued me. I’m no stranger to change, in fact, sometimes I think change is my middle name. I’ve changed careers and my life so many times that I hardly remember who I was, what I was, when I began. However, I didn’t start out thinking, “I’m going to change my life.” No, rather than being the director of my life, at first, I was more a puppet.

However, I can see now that I was more the director than I realized. That’s the beauty of hindsight. But now, I want to know I’m the director; I want to make changes in my life on purpose.

A young woman I know is changing her life. At first glance she doesn’t seem to be the flamboyant type. But the changes she is making are. She’s quitting a job she never liked, leaving a town she doesn’t like, and moving four states away. That’s flamboyant! She’s starting immediately, too! She made up her mind she needed a change and took action to make it happen.

It’s easy to talk ourselves out of a change. We like the known, even when we’re miserable. The unknown is scary. But life is just too short and precious to stay in our comfort zone. If you’re feeling that you need to make a change, if your life isn’t what you’d like it to be, it’s time to be flamboyant! Shake yourself out of your comfort zone!

Take stock: where in your life do you need a change? Another young woman I know began to realize that she needed to make some changes. She was married to an abusive man who was involved in illegal activities. When she became aware of them, she knew she had to get herself and her two children away. She also realized that her teenaged daughter was more the caregiver for her young son than she was. She needed to make some changes in that area, too.

She relocated herself and her children, taking them back to the town where she grew up. In the process, she began to find herself. She discovered a capable, talented woman, much stronger than she thought she was. She made new friends, found a new career. Though her changes weren’t begun immediately, they were flamboyant, and lasting.

To begin to make changes in your short, precious life, take stock. Where do you need to change? Do you need to lose weight? Find a job that you love? Get out of a relationship? Maybe you want a relationship? Once you’ve pinpointed where you want to change, begin immediately! If you want to lose weight, see your doctor about appropriate diet and exercise. If it’s a new job, what kind of work do you like to do? What makes your heart sing?

To start immediately, you need to know what changes need to be made. Once you know, you can start. Knowing that the life you want is possible puts a spring in your step, a sparkle in your eye, gives you new hope.

Life is a possibility! Anything’s possible, if you put your heart into it. What possibility will you realize in your life? Live flamboyantly!

In another place I write about hope. Hope is a feeling we have and an optimistic attitude about something we want to happen.

Some of us stay hopeful, some have given up. There’s an ad on tv that ends with, “Stay hungry, my friends!”. I would change to: stay hopeful! Keep dreaming, and put wings on your dreams by taking whatever action that feels appropriate to see your dreams fulfilled.

I’m all about dreaming and dream fulfillment. My mother always chastised my dreaming…”she always has her head in the clouds!” I did, until life as I knew it then beat my dreams to death.

But I was fortunate; I discovered a secret…life is what we dream it to be! Now I know my dreams are ways to discover what life is all about and that is…to be joyful, to dream, and to see my dreams fulfilled.

My dreams weren’t fulfilled magically; I didn’t dream and then my fairy godmother waved her magic wand and pouf! there it was, just what I wanted. I made many mistakes along the way, took many wrong turns (maybe they were wrong, maybe just detours). The point is, I put wings on my dreams and saw them fulfilled.

A young man I know just saw a lifelong dream fulfilled. He spent two weeks touring the west coast on a motorcycle. He’s dreamed, planned, worked and saved for those two weeks. It was everything he dreamed about and then some.

Dreams create hope and hope helps to put wings on dreams. Hope is a feeling that can be deliberately created. Just start with saying the word, hope, quietly, silently or out loud. Observe how you feel, mentally and physically. Even your body responds to the word. With repetition, your level of hope will rise. Continue creating hope in your mind and watch your life follow.

Deep within your psyche, there is a part of you that is more powerful and smarter than you know. That part knows everything there is to know about you, your deepest secrets, even things about you of which you may not be aware.

There are many people in our world whom we consider to be geniuses, Einstein, of course, the chief among them. What is a genius? According to the dictionary, a genius is a person who is exceptionally intelligent or creative, about something specific, or generally. Robert Schoeinfeld, author of The Invisible Path to Success, says that a genius is a person who is more knowledgeable than most people or has the ability to process information better, faster or more creatively than others.

We all have a genius within. We were born with the innate ability to be geniuses. That part of ourselves that is more knowledgeable, more wiser than our everyday self, that is the genius within. When we tap into that part of ourselves for answers and guidance, we, too, can be geniuses.

Dr. William Larkin, a psychologist who specializes in neuroscience and the author of Growing A Positive Mind, wrote that it takes about twenty years to grow a genius, to become a genius. If so, the sooner we begin tapping into our inner genius the better!

When I begin tapping into my genius, I connect with all the knowledge of the universe, the virtual realm, where everything exists as pure potential. In that realm, anything is possible!

Do you struggle through life? Do you wake up Monday mornings with a groan, dreading the day, the week ahead: Does life seem to be one long struggle after another, a job you hate, but need because you have a mortgage, children to feed and clothe, a car payment to make? Has the dream you had when you were young slipped away, replaced with “reality”?

My life was like that. Sometimes, when I forget, it is again. Deep down, I felt something stir in me, trying to tell me, “It isn’t supposed to be this way!” I really believed life was supposed to be joyful, but I couldn’t find any joy.

Then one day I stumbled into something that changed my life forever. I discovered the secret to a joyful life, a life of abundant, joyful living.

A few years ago a dvd was all the rage. The Secret told the story of how a young woman turned her life around. Long before The Secret was made, philosopher Ernest Holmes wrote about that secret, and more, in his book, The Science of Mind. There’s more to a life of joyful abundant living than the law of attraction, which is the subject of The Secret. Ernest Holmes teaches about the science of training your mind. He also teaches about the Law of Mind. When we understand that Law, we can end our struggle: “…Life works through a Law of Mind..your thought is automatically acted upon by this Law…” (Ernest Holmes, Creative Mind).

To end our struggles, Ernest Holmes says, “All we have to do is to provide the right mental…attitude of mind and then believe that we already have it, and the rewards will be within.” (Ernest Holmes, Creative Mind).

The Secret tells us that what we think about, we’ll receive. That’s the Law of Attraction. We attract into our lives what we consistently think about.

Ernest Holmes teaches us how to train our minds so that our dominant thoughts are those things or attributes that we desire.

What I desire is a life of joy, good health and prosperity; a life without struggle. I know that to have a life of joy, of good health, of prosperity, I must train my mind, focusing only on what I want.

Henry Wood, an early twentieth century philosopher, taught a mental gymnasium to train the mind. Dr. William Larkin, a twenty-first century psychologist and neuroscientist, teaches an emotional gym for training the mind (see his book, Growing a Positive Mind, available on Amazon). Both consist of repeating words like love, hope, joy and peace over and over, until your mind automatically goes in the direction of those feelings. Soon your body follows.

Train your mind to go in the direction of your dreams and soon your struggles will cease or at least, lessen.

Life is meant to be joyful, train your mind to be joyful! Yes, you can do it!